Evolution, the New Cosmos, and the Continued Need for Public Broadcasting (Retracted)

So, I obviously should have waited to see more of Tyson’s Cosmos before writing this post. My jump-the-gun assumptions were about as wrong as one could be. Apologies to Tyson, Cosmos, and anyone who wasted time reading the OP. And thanks to those readers whose sharp criticisms keep me honest. That’s an “in general” thanks to the community at large, of course, but in this particular case let me give an especially big shout out to Kolohe and jim colllins.

Mind you, I still stand by my two main points: that public broadcasting is necessary, and that we fail our kids in this country’s public school science classrooms. But since all of the arguments in this post jumped of the singularity of my egregious error about Tyson’s Cosmos, everything else in the post pretty much falls apart like a poorly built house of cards. So rather than argue about those things here, I’ll regroup and try to address each separately down the road with better arguments.

Like many others my age, I was tremendously excited to hear that Neil deGrasse Tyson was remaking — or rather, updating — Carl Sagan’s brilliant public television show, Cosmos. I was an enormous fan of the first series. I watched it each week when it first aired. For me, like many others, Sagan’s Cosmos was the dropping penny: it was the first time it have ever occurred to me that science was more than a list of dates, Latin words, and the names of dead white men I had to memorize. And if you had to pick a modern-day stand-in for Sagan, Tyson seems the obvious choice. Like his predecessor, Tyson is one on those guys whose love of both the scientific method and the unknown is downright infectious.[1]

The new Cosmos, however, is not being aired on pubic television. It’s being aired on network television — specifically, Fox and National Geographic. And as it turns out, that may have been something of a mistake — a mistake that highlights the real continued need for public broadcasting in the United States.

This week’s episode dealt with biology, including evolution. Or, to be more accurate, it kind of, sort of, almost dealt with evolution. If you’ve never before seen Sagan’s Cosmos, the theory of evolution pops up throughout the series, and the bit that explains the theory is here:

[Note: If you don’t have access to video, know that the section is about eight minutes long and talks in detail about Darwin’s landmark theory.]

But due to the demands of the market, Tyson was unable to devote much time at all to the subject on network television. In fact, the “discussion” of evolution in the 2014 remake is a mere 15 seconds long, and merely uses the word as a reference. The new Cosmos doesn’t really talk about evolution at all. This is because in a country where talking about an accepted, foundational scientific theory makes some people uncomfortable in their faith, the free market demands we simply don’t talk about it at all.

Indeed, the Fox affiliate in Oklahoma cut the entire fifteen seconds out of the episode before airing it. Station officials, who had the common decency to appear to be embarrassed by having done so later, sheepishly claimed the missing fifteen seconds was due to accidental operator error. You know, because TV station control panels are built in a way that require low-level employees to press just the right button to make sure random fifteen-second bits of programming don’t get edited out. The Sooner State’s House, by the way, just passed a bill that would make it illegal for school administrators to prevent science teachers from telling kids that evolution is a no more scientifically valid or accepted than creationism.

If you’re a parent of a teenager enrolled in public high schools, you know this problem is not unique to Tyson’s Cosmos or the state of Oklahoma. The truth of the matter is that in most places in the United States the theory of evolution isn’t really taught anymore, even in Blue states. Sure, high school biology classes teach the word evolution and the name Charles Darwin, but to save themselves potential headaches with squeaky-wheel parents most administrations have teachers leave it at that. The nuances of the theory, the way that it has been proven over time in a number of fields, the fascinating variances that evolutionary biologist still disagree over, all of this is left on the cutting room floor. Which is why most young adults today who have taken high school biology, when asked, will tell you without embarrassment that evolutions is a theory that says that people came from monkeys. And why when they are presented with bogus pseudo-science from the fundamentalist crowd, they have nothing of substance inside their head to make valid counter-arguments.

And so it is that Cosmos has just become the latest in a long line of arguments about the merits of publicly supported broadcasting. Biology is science, and — I would argue — science is important in and of itself. Having a population that is as well versed in basic scientific principles is good for the health of society. Why this is so is a larger argument that I will leave for another day, so for now let me just say that teaching kids about evolution is not the same as teaching kids it’s okay to get an abortion, or teaching kids that gay people should be allowed to be married.

The dual arguments for those who rail against public broadcasting are that the free market will take care of what we need to know, and that if the market doesn’t choose something then that thing isn’t worth taxpayer money. In the case of evolution, however, Tyson’s Cosmos has shown us that sometimes the market works against our best interests, and further that there are some things that most people don’t want to buy that the public commons is better off having available.

(Oh, and by the way — after having read about the cutting of evolution from the new Cosmos, liberal bloggers who spend their time trying to convince readers that public broadcasting should be treated with scorn and derision for being a bunch of “tote-baggers” just because public broadcasting occasionally hires people who aren’t them can officially kiss my ass. They’re just as responsible for every economic death-nail public TV and radio gets these days as the fundamentalist crowd.)

Update: Kolohe notes below that it isn’t really fair to judge the series treatment of evolution until it’s aired completely. This seems an excellent point, so for the moment I’m shelving my opinion on the matter. I’ll post a quick Off the Cuff in a month of two when it’s done to double down, or sooner to eat crow.

[1] For those wanting a review, here’s my elevator version: I watched the first episode right after it was available online, and have to say that it was pretty true to the original. Tyson’s graphics and animation were billions and billions of light-years (sorry, I couldn’t resist) ahead of Sagan’s, but that innocent sense of wonder is still intact. If I had a quibble, it was that as an adult who now reads a ton about science, I wanted it to have the kind of depth of detail the Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything had.

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Tod is a writer from the Pacific Northwest. He is also serves as Executive Producer and host of both the7 Deadly Sins Showat Portland's historic Mission Theatre and 7DS: Pants On Fire! at the White Eagle Hotel & Saloon. He is a regular inactive for Marie Claire International and the Daily Beast, and is currently writing a book on the sudden rise of exorcisms in the United States. Follow him on Twitter.

113 Responses

I completely agree, of course i’m a liberal, so all this makes complete sense. Many of the best educational shows ( James Burke’s Connections series, The Ascent of Man) i’ve ever seen and will still re-watch were only broadcast on PBS.

BTW Yes i know Burke eventually had a Connection series on TLC. That would be the TLC that now shows Honey Boo Boo or other reality shows i think. He only got on TLC because of the wide exposure his series got on PBS.Report

My 7th-grade science teacher introduced me to “Connections,” and I loved it. Having grown older, I have some reservations on some things Burke says. But most of those have to do with what to me is certain assumptions about non-Western cultures that crop up every once in a while. I still like the show.Report

How is this an argument for public broadcasting, when your other example of evolution being ignored is public schools? Why do you think that PBS wouldn’t also, in this day and age, decide that detailed coverage of evolution isn’t worth the PR backlash it would cause?Report

Well, public education curricula are controlled by the individual states, which means that children in red states aren’t taught the theory of evolution. A public broadcaster would be a national entity; and unlike school curricula (which are determined by school boards, i.e.: local government), it would be arms-length from the government and able to determine its own content. In Canada, the government can’t tell CBC what to broadcast.

They can, however, cut CBC’s funding if it broadcasts things they don’t like, and are doing so. And it’s likely that a US public broadcaster would shy away from thing that people find controversial (even factual material like the theory of evolution). So your point is a good one.Report

Well, public education curricula are controlled by the individual states, which means that children in red states aren’t taught the theory of evolution. A public broadcaster would be a national entity;

Nationally, Republicans have controlked the House of Representatives for something like 12 of the last 20 years, the Senate for 16 of the last 32 years, and have had 4 of the last 7 presidents.Report

@jm3zaitch, yeah but there recent control is odd with the votes in 2012 elections. 1.4 million more people voted for the Democratic Party. With a fairer districting system and distribution of seats, the GOP would not control the House.Report

Lee, not exactly. Or, at least, analyses (Zic pointed to one a while back) have demonstrated that gerrymandering is not actually responsible for GOP control of the House. The GOP has a natural advantage due to settlement patters to account for the pretty small difference in vote totals.

You might get a Democratic majority if you had statewide proportional voting or something, though.Report

@will-truman, I didn’t say that its entirely due to gerrymandering and that lot of it has to do with natural population distribution. If the Democratic voting areas were split into smaller but more seats and the Republican voting areas larger but fewer seats than their would be a House that might more accurately reflect the vote. Unless your blindly partisan, which many people are, winning the majority of votes should get you the majority of seats.Report

It’s not necessarily blind partisanship. It could also be a preference for weighting representation so that, say, rural interests have more of a voice. There’s partisanship in there, of course, but I think it’s possible for one to adopt a view that working anti-majoritarian tendencies in the system is a good thing without necessarily being blindly partisan.Report

Unless your blindly partisan, which many people are, winning the majority of votes should get you the majority of seats.

That’s rarely the case, though, in any SMD system. There is almost always going to be a margin of error (though it’s not error). Arguably, the spread of the Democratic vote total in 2012 was thin enough to be within said margin. (That the Republican margin in the house is as large as it is is a problem, though, because that was deliberate.)

I’m not sure how what you propose – drawing districts with an eye towards particular results – is markedly different from other forms of gerrymandering. Ideally, in my mind, you want congressional districts to represent places rather than specific results. Otherwise, you might as well just go to a statewide proportional representation system. Or a nation-wide one. (Which some people advocate, though I have mixed feelings about)Report

@pierre-corneille , building in a sort of anti-majoritarian bias in the form of, for example, requirements for super-majorities for certain classes of decisions is all well and fine. But what we have now are structural advantages in both the House and Senate that accrue to a particular constituency and, by extension, a particular political party regardless of which side holds the majority overall.

Do you imagine that somehow this structural advantage (the part not due to gerrymandering) would magically shift to favor the Democrats if/when the Republicans hold an overall majority? And just exactly why should Democrats/lefties be satisfied with this state of affairs?Report

The anti-majoritarian nature of the House is a bug. It certainly wasn’t meant to be that way. But – aside from gerrymandering – it’s the product of where we have collectively decided to live. I do understand the frustration, though.

The Senate is another matter, of course. Which benefits lower-population states of either color and that was very deliberately counter-majoritarian. It does hand an aggregate benefit to the GOP, though at the moment the advantage is less pronounced than most people think.Report

But the real point, @will-truman , is that the situation in the house isn’t really anti-majoritarian. It only sort of looks that way right now because right now Democrats enjoy a slight majority status nation-wide. Let the electorate shift a few points in the direction of Republicans and you could no longer make that claim. It’s really just a bias towards rural interests and Republicans, neither of which I can comprehend a principled justification for.Report

Like I said, it’s a bug and it’s accidental. So, no, it’s not justified by principle but by circumstance and possibly by a lack of superior substitute. It’s antimajoritarian now, though as you point out that is subject to change.Report

It’s worse than that, Will. Kansas is about as red as states get, yet the actual R/D split statewide is around 60/40, maybe 65/35. A proportional split of House reps would be 3/1 or 2/2, depending. Not long ago our delegation was 3/1 with a relatively urban district near KC sending a Democrat. Not no more! So how exactly is leveraging a 60/40 split to 4/0 representation anti-majoritarian, even accidentally? Looks like the exact opposite to me.Report

My point was against the “blindly partisan” part of what Lee wrote. I think one can support non-majoritarian outcomes without being “blindly partisan.”

I agree with what Will has said here in this subthread as well, although I hadn’t thought of it in the same way. But what I had intended in my original comment you were responding to was to push back against what I saw as a statement that only “blindly partisan” people could disagree.Report

@pierre-corneille, blind partisanship does not necessarily have to take the form of preferring one political party over another. A person that desires an electoral system that favors rural interests having a vastly disproportionate vote is also being blindly partisan in that they are saying that rural interests deserve 40% of the influence even though the rural population might only be 15%. Considering voting patterns, favoring over representation of rural interests is effectively being a partisan Republican as well.Report

Whether support for unequal representation breaks down into “blind partisanship” depends, at least in part, on the merits of the case that is being made.

For example, I think there are arguments in favor of the US Senate that are not blindly partisan even if the structure of the senate generally favors Republicans. @michael-cain has made such an argument, and his sympathies don’t especially line up with the GOP.

On the other hand, it seems to me to take blind partisanship to support some of the Republican proposals to give electoral votes by congessional district. I can’t think of non-partisan, rational reasons for it, never mind actually agree with them.

In the case of the house, I think the arguments in favor of a slight skew away from the cities can be justified as part of the argument against statewide multi-member districts. Or an argument against corrective gerrymandering to draw district lines with a partisan result in mind. Not that it makes it good that there is a partisan skew, but that the partisan skew is a negative consequence of something that is better than the alternatives.Report

Because of its funding structure, PBS is somewhat more immunized from these sorts of pressure than more commercial television. They might buckle like Fox and National Geographic did but they might not. Its a sort of mixed bag.Report

I’ll say this again. The premise that the Cosmos folks and their broadcasters buckled is not in evidence, and is contradicted by a heaping mound of other evidence. They almost literally poke the spectrum of creationist thought in the eye in the second episode.Report

“Why do you think that PBS wouldn’t also, in this day and age, decide that detailed coverage of evolution isn’t worth the PR backlash it would cause?”

I’m going to guess that you don’t consume a lot of public radio and television, because if you did I think you’d realize the answer to your question is because they already do.

Science Friday deals with the subject all the time. Until it went off the air recently (not for being controversial) it’s parent show Talk of the Nation frequently had on biologist who had recently published papers or books that dealt with evolution; so to do show like Innovation Hub, The Takeaway, Here and Now, and a ton of others. NOVA deals with the topic of evolution constantlye, as does all of public broadcasting’s other science shows like Radio Lab, and Quest, Secret Life of Scientists, the Science Guy and Your Inner Fish.

Hell, they produce entire specials about how evolution is science and what’s being pitched by politicians as “the controversy” isn’t, like Flock of Dodos, Intelligent Design on Trial, and The Battle Over the Meaning of Everything.

Good point and although I do watch quite a bit of PBS, I apparently don’t watch enough, or I’d recognize more of the examples you mention. For the record, I’m not really saying that PBS is subject to the exact same pressures as, say, network television is. Instead, I’m saying that it could potentially be subject to similar pressures.

Evidently it’s not, however, from your examples and from what Lee says elsewhere that PBS seems in some ways more immunized.Report

I had the same question as BB, and though your examples are good reasons to expect that this wouldn’t have happened if PBS had produced the Cosmos reboot (and thus do answer his question), I still find myself wondering whether the kind of attention to this production, which would have been much greater than to Science Friday or the evolution program you mention that I hadn’t heard of, wouldn’t have produced the same pressures, and possibly ultimately a similar result. For example, I’m not totally sure you’re right that NOVA still does deal with evolution in depth (i.e. doing more than what you’re criticizing the new Cosmos for doing) as much as it used to. I don’t watch a ton, but I watch some. I don;t remember much looking at evolution in depth recently.

Also, as Shazbot suggests, if it turned out this problem had occurred in a PBS proaction, it would be exactly the kind of content decision that those whom you have such contempt for for their criticism of public broadcasting at least believe themselves to be responding to. Though to be sure, I agree that calls to stop financially supporting public broadcasting hurt journalism on net. At the same time, I also understand signaling dissatisfaction with an editorial direction you disagree with by suspending support and publicly stating the reason for it. Whether it’s reasonable comes down to the specifics of how we feel about the decisions actually being responded to – and I agree with you on the specifics of whatever public broadcasting might be said to be doing wrong at the present moment. Suspending one’s support on the basis of left/progressive dissatisfaction with the content seems over the top to me, too. But to the extent that the issue is just their voicing criticism of those decisions, I don’t see what the problem is as much. I’d be curious to know exactly what pieces of advocacy you’ve seen that led you to this attitude about people expressing dissatisfaction with certain tendencies in public broadcasting.Report

The Sooner State’s House, by the way, just passed a bill that would make it illegal for school administrators to prevent science teachers from telling kids that evolution is a no more scientifically valid or accepted than creationism.

My wife and I were talking about the latest controversy about The Cosmos and how the religionists are demanding equal afor their views.Report

The nuances of the theory, the way that it has been proven over time in a number of fields, the fascinating variances that evolutionary biologist still disagree over, all of this is left on the cutting room floor. Which is why most young adults today who have taken high school biology, when asked, will tell you without embarrassment that evolutions is a theory that says that people came from monkeys. And why when they are presented with bogus pseudo-science from the fundamentalist crowd, they have nothing of substance inside their head to make valid counter-arguments.

Eh…while I agree with the point you’re trying to make here, I would argue that the main reason most people can’t do these things is that most people don’t remember the vast majority of what they were taught in school, the exceptions being that small subset that they continue to use on a regular basis.Report

I agree. I think there are relatively few topics that students are able to provide a valid defense for. If an otherwise brilliant student did only know that bit about evolution, that would be sad, but brilliant students are the ones who are reading books outside of their regular coursework anyway.Report

This thread might become a discussion of evolution and how it’s taught in schools, and it might become a discussion of Mr. Tyson, whose shows, public speeches, and what I consider to be his scientism turns me off.

Having gotten that drive-by about Mr. Tyson out of the way, I’ll say that I think I can pretty much sign on to Tod’s argument, although @brandon-berg raises what I think is a pretty good point. We don’t necessarily have much assurance that public tv will do any better. My only answer–and it is at best just a partial answer–to Brandon is that PBS has a different constituency and different sources of funding and therefore different incentives in deciding how or whether its shows discuss evolution or other things not desired by the aggregation of market choices.

On some level, this leads me to come down on the side of NewDealer and others who argue for public funding for things that maybe a majority of people don’t patronize. For some reason–and the reason is probably my own self-interested hypocrisy–I have a hard time signing on to robust funding of museums*, but I have a much easier time signing on to more funding for PBS and for public libraries. In part, that’s because I think they are more accessible and are so on a more enduring basis than museums are.** But in part, it’s probably also because I use those services more.

*”Robust” here does a lot of work. I don’t want public funding for museums abolished and I think on some level it’s necessary and desirable. I just don’t think the “pro” argument is as obvious or unproblematic as some of those who advance it seem to think.

**I imagine that for most people, a trip to the museum is a yearly–if that frequent–excursion, while tuning in to PBS or going to the library happen much more often for a larger number of people.Report

That’s a fair question because I use that word a lot and I mean it pejoratively. And I don’t have a precise definition. Here’s is part of what I mean:

Scientism includes any of the following. One, the belief that all questions can be addressed using the scientific method. Two, the appeal to science as the final arbiter of things that science cannot resolve. Three, the willingness to deny that anyone who questions something uttered or stated in the name of science can do so legitimately. I see number three as more of the type of thing that is done by people who already have scientific credentials (say a graduate degree) done against those who haven’t such credentials, or a way of saying that only certified scientists can question what other scientists say.

I can see many holes in what I just wrote, and I’m not sure how that definition stands up as a definition. It might even be a straw man.

And it’s possible that I’m being unfair to Mr. Tyson. All I’ve really seen of him is two brief snippets of larger presentations he gave on TV. One was aired on some cable channel back when I had cable. In the snippet I saw, he seemed to state that the only reason people ever would believe in god is to explain what science has not yet explained, a “god of the gaps” argument that is true of many believers but not the only argument for god.

The second is an interview he gave to Charlie Rose recently in which he said that people need to be scientifically literate because in a democratic society, we need to be able to evaluate the decisions of policymakers. That second example is actually a counterexample because it doesn’t really fit my definition of scientism and it strikes me as actually a defensible assertion in favor of scientific literacy. It just seems too simplistic (the argument that science education needs more money because otherwise policymakers will do unscientific things.)

I’ll state that what I saw were only snippets of larger presentations. I did not even see the rest of either to judge them properly. So perhaps I’m off base.

Anyway, that’s my working definition. I do realize I get more punchy on this issue than I have a right to be. And perhaps I should just avoid throwing that word around and instead criticize whomever based on whatever they say.Report

I appreciate that very much, @pierre-corneille . In this context, I think it’s a bit inappropriate since Tyson speaks in the series only of scientific matters, so appealing to scientific thinking and the collected achievements of science seems appropriate. In other contexts, science is probably not particularly relevant: beauty is the example I use in discussions of this nature. Science can tell us about symmetry and pattern recognition and such, but while that’s helpful, it can’t get down to the essence of why we find something beautiful.Report

This thread might become a discussion of evolution and how it’s taught in schools,

That was actually the topic of my earlier non-existent comment. I think there’s actually a pretty dicey set of issues in play here, particularly with respect to the OK law effectively permitting school boards and administrators to include competing (mythologically-based) theories about the human origins and climate-science and etc. In particular, the way I read the OK bill, it specifically applies to religiously-based theories like young earth creationism and would permit including that theory in science classes. Of course, for those of us on the outside looking in, that’s a huge category mistake, but from the pov of a Real Believer the science (and The Scientists!) are flat out wrong about an important topic necessary to understanding the world correctly.

It seems to me a disservice to kids (but not Christian YEC-type kids) to present these competing theories in the context of an education (since its the opposite of education as that word is standardly understood), but the politics of the issue fuzzies-up what would otherwise be clear distinctions to separate the two types of learning.Report

I’m curious about your parting parenthetical. What are you referring to in particular? (That is, if you have the time to answer my question. If not, no need. I’m just not familiar with what you’re talking about.)Report

That’s Tod getting all ideological on us, Pierre, looking for evidence to fit a theory. It’s not too different from a typical young earth creationist who searches for “scientific evidence” that the theory of evolution is a liberal myth.Report

(Oh, and by the way — after having read about the cutting of evolution from the new Cosmos, liberal bloggers who spend their time trying to convince readers that public broadcasting should be treated with scorn and derision for being a bunch of “tote-baggers” just because public broadcasting occasionally hires people who aren’t them can officially kiss my ass. They’re just as responsible for every economic death-nail public TV and radio gets these days as the fundamentalist crowd.)

The whole idea behind the criticism of “tote baggers” is that many public broadcasters and a portion of their audiences are too deferential to right wing interests and too willing to aim at a faux centrism that makes a lot of “BSDI” claims and pretends David Brooks is correct and interesting. They are your ally in criticizng the failure of public broadcasters to not call anyone who doesn’t believe in evolution a moron or liar.

But yeah, somehow the left is at fault. Punch those hippies. BSDI.Report

I don’t get why you say “qed,” in response to my comment, but I dumb. Is you attacking me?

The criticism of public broadcasting is that it is too deferential to proponents of crazy right wing ideas like the denial of evolution or global warming. It presents debates on these things as if there was legitimate disagreement over whether the theory of evolution is true when there isn’t. How the far left is responsible for any of this is just weird to say.

There are legitimate criticisms of the left, but this ain’t one of them.Report

And the “chemicals are bad” contingent of the pro-organic movement, and the people who say we need green energy and then oppose any actual proposed hydroelectric, wind, or nuclear project due to possible environmental implications.Report

@stillwater, you can also had the locavores to your list. They have some good points but never get around to defining local in precise terms, which is kind of necessary, and fail to realize the sheer amount of force necessary to get people to abide by the locavore ideas. People in cold climates aren’t going to give up coffee and other tropical food. Immigrants aren’t going to abandon the ingredients necessary for their cuisines. Lactivists are another somewhat weird group on the left. The zero population growth/voluntary extinction movement is another leftist group that deserves criticism.Report

@North, your right in that they are too impotent to be technically harmful and are basically a bunch of eccentrics. There failure to describe what local means in precise geographic terms frustrates me for some reason though.Report

Harmful, but irritating, particularly when they start yammering nonsensically about “food security” and “reduced” enerhy usage.

I’ve been reading up on the issue a bit and will try to put some of the evidence and conclusions in an off-the-cuff post, but there is (apparently) an increasingly compelling amount of evidence that the efficiency gains resulting from the process of genetically modifying glysophate resistant crops (coupled with the use of glysophate of course) is actually tailing off, and (amongst other worries) food scarcity is actually one of the consequences of the process.

There’s a big report I’ve been sifting thru, with tentative conclusions thruought, which complies a bunch of the current evidence. In short, it appears that there is evidence that the benefits are leveling off and in some cases regressing.

It’s a pretty huge topic, one I’m not really suited to be researching since I dont’ have any background in the subject matter.Report

“The whole idea behind the criticism of “tote baggers” is that many public broadcasters and a portion of their audiences are too deferential to right wing interests and too willing to aim at a faux centrism that makes a lot of “BSDI” claims and pretends David Brooks is correct and interesting. ”

Oh, I ‘m sorry. I hadn’t realized the reason we should stop supporting one of the last vehicles for actual quality journalism in this country is that some of its shows hire people you disagree with. You’re right, that’s totally different than the reason the right wants me to stop supporting it.Report

The phrase “stop supporting” is hopelessly vague here. A criticism is and isn’t an absence of support in the same sense that advocating the murder of Big Bird is an absence of support.

I support public tv and radio. (Have given money.) But also am heavily critical of the (not always present) faux attempt to give credence to rigjt wing positions on issues where the right is clearly wrong.

I love Frontline, but they did an episode on Rhee and ed. reform that I wuld happily criticize as totebagger bate and/or crud.

Public media can be both the best available mass media and still deeply flawed. That is what the left believes: it should be supported and improved.Report

I think I actually agree with you here, or at least can meet you part way. I do think that, for example, the PBS Newshour has a not always admirable tendency to take a controversy, say that there are two sides, and then interview each side as if they were completely legitimate views. That’s probably a good approach to many, even most issues, but when it comes to things like torture memos, I have to agree that the Newshour is sometimes guilty of it. And Shields and Brooks point and counterpoint is also an example of this. I suppose that type of thing is inherent in the point/counterpoint format, so if one accepts that such a segment is legitimate–and seeing that it’s only once a week, I’m not going to complain too much–I’m inclined to be more forgiving.

I’d cut Frontline some slack on that score, however, because it is usually making an argument that aligns–again, usually–with what can be called the “left” (or at least “liberal”) position. So giving the other side an opportunity to speak is just being responsible journalism because Frontline ends up–thrice again, usually–critiquing that response. I can’t speak much to the Rhee episode. I saw it, but don’t remember it well enough. So you may be right there.

Where I think I might disagree would be the following hypothetical, which being hypothetical, is resting on facts not in evidence. Suppose that PBS had a counterpoint to Cosmos. Let’s say it’s a counterpoint to Sagan’s Cosmos (because I haven’t watched Tyson’s). Let’s say this counterpoint does not engage in pseudo-science like Young Earth Creationism, but instead offers a critique of Sagan’s materialistic view of the universe, a critique to the effect of he unfairly baits non-empiricists–or “idealists” as I believe he called them in one episode–as the anti-science killjoys who set us back centuries and almost ruined it for everyone. If PBS offered such a program (again, this is hypothetical….if it has or does, I don’t know about it), I think it would be appropriate.

Or if PBS offered a program that looked into the culture from which Young Earth Creationism comes with a stance that’s more sympathetic than “these people are nuts,” I think such a program would also be appropriate. That point of view as well as the hypothetical counterpoint to Sagan’s Cosmos is, in my opinion, something that also needs to be presented and grappled with. And PBS is as good forum as any to offer it.

As I pointed out in my comment to Tod’s comment to me above, it’s possible I just don’t watch PBS enough to know the counterexamples. There may already be shows like that

I make no comment here about Tod’s apparent claim that lefitsts bear some responsibility for the reaction against PBS because I’m not particularly familiar with the leftist critique. If he wishes to explain it, I’m all ears. (And yes, after rethinking my “q.e.d.” comment to you, I think that was inappropriate. I apologize.)Report

“But due to the demands of the market, Tyson was unable to devote much time at all to the subject on network television”

[citation needed]

How do you know that this was not a aesthetic choice, but one of ‘customer demand’? Besides the entire 2nd episode is pretty much dedicated to evolution.

Tyson and the producers are quite explicit on their views regarding evolution and climate change – hitting the audience over the head with it, frankly. It’s makes Sagan peacenik hippie nuclear freeze advocacy look subtle. The entire Giordano Bruno story is presented as a battle between Good Science and Bad Religion – when it really wasn’t. (It was a story about a guy with unorthodox religious views against Bad Religion and Bad Government – which doesn’t make the Catholic Church look any better, but it wasn’t about science *at all*)

And I agree with what was said above in the comments, that the free market is going to better provide a minority opinion than a government run organization subject to direct political pressure.

(If there’s one thing that showing this on commercial television has downgraded, it’s that the editing has been horrible at taking commercial breaks into account).Report

There is no evidence that the free market will “better provide a minority opinion than a government run organization.” Free markets will provide whatever the owners and investors think will make them the most money. Minorities and minority opinions frequently feel under-served by the free market in television, which mainly seems to cater to Reality TV and sports fans first and foremost. During the first part of television history, BBC was much more daring in what they showed than American television.

What provides for minority opinion is not the free market or government funding but immunity from both commercial and political pressures.Report

I wouldn’t say “no evidence.” After all, Kolohe’s example of episode number 2 seems to be evidence. (Disclosure: I haven’t seen any of the new Cosmos episodes, although I did watch most of the original ones when I was a teenager. Even then, they were reruns.)Report

The thing is, a private firm can say, “The hell with what the majority wants; they’re not our customers.” Firms set out to service niche markets all the time, with products that are uninteresting or even offensive to the majority. Government can do that, sometimes, but the incentives are usually not in that direction, because they have to keep the majority happy.Report

I thought it fairly self evident that a free market in ideas is going to underperform in cases where the truth or goodness of a given idea comes apart from whether it feels good or true. People consume the latter, and in things like evolution, global warming and economics, there are plenty of features that cause our mental heuristics (which are mostly reliable for navigating small hunter gatherer societies) to fail badly.Report

Sure. For most people the utility of an idea is not in its empirical truth value, but in its congruence with and reinforcement of existing value sets. So most people “purchase” ideas on the open market of ideas for reasons other than their empirical accuracy.Report

@murali ‘s point was explicitly about markets. So in your +1, why does the system under examination become democracy? You might be even more right to make that claim than Murali is to make his, but they’re different claims.Report

Technically that’s true, @michael-drew , but the connectedness between a free market of ideas and a (western-style, liberal) democracy seems obvious enough to me. Yes, one might exist in a situation where the other is absent, but most of the time, you’d expect to encounter them in tandem and interrelated.

So I’m guilty of using one concept as shorthand for the other. In this case, probably a venal sin at worst.Report

I’ve just been lectured enough on how democracy is only the least-worst threat to liberalism and freedom for markets that we’ve come up with so far and nothing more (but don’t say we fail to praise democracy sufficiently! – and I no longer do), a point that places markets and liberalism as a primary value and democracy as a contingent one with significant drawbacks of its own.

So when an advocate for liberalism and markets as stout as @murali goes to the trouble of acknowledging a shortcoming of the liberal-market system itself – the primary value – I kind of prefer for the point to stay in those terms, rather than be piled on top of the raft of criticisms that advocates of liberalism and markets as primary values have for democracy as a contingent one in their service.Report

Regardless of how Murali originally made the point, it’s a criticism that applies more to democracy than to markets. While markets cater to the entire range of consumers, democracy caters to the median and ignores the tails.

Also, he said “free market in ideas,” which is often used to refer to people choosing from a variety of ideas that are presented to them, rather than specifically to free markets in the economic sense. Maybe that is in fact what he meant, but there’s no reason to think that this is a problem that has anything to do with free markets in the libertarian sense.Report

Brandon and Burt are correct on this. I’m referring to the idea that the marketplace of ideas will eventually yield the truth. Of course this doesn’t mean that we should get governments to regulate speech, but the facts are what they are and the costs of public deliberation must be acknowledged. A standard RCT analysis of an unregulated market in ideas shows how it fails. This is an important result as it undermines a number of arguments that say that success in a free market of ideas (that is to say widespread acceptance by almost everyone outside of academic and other research institutional settings) is indicative of truth. Academic and research institutions tend to place impose standards of argumentation and evidence as well as impose norms about honesty as well as about addressing criticism. Academic publishing is also geared towards encouraging successful criticism. This does not preclude that specific research institutions may do an inadequate job with respect to the relevant norms and institutional structures.Report

The continual ability of Biblical literalists to fight against the teaching of evolution in public schools and elsewhere in American life is troublesome. After the Scopes Trial, which was a publicity stunt gone very wrong, they went into the shadows for a few decades but sometimes in the 1970s emerged with full force and re-started the fight. One problem is that that public education in the United States is subject to more popular political pressure more than it is other countries. This makes the politics of public education more democratic, which I guess is a good thing, but hurts the content of education.Report

My high school did the same. A fair number of evangelicals around, though not as prominent as there are in other places. The notion of refusing to teach evolution probably would have resulted in some interesting school board elections.Report

I was flipping through the channels and hit the NatGeo version. Tyson went on at length about DNA’s role in coding what things are, the mechanisms for duplicating DNA when cells divide, the role of transcription errors and other mutations in creating changes in characteristics, and how the accumulation of sufficient changes leading to the creation of a new species. An explanation of how even small changes can have enough effect on how well an animal fits a particular environmental niche so that over many generations even a single transcription error may become widespread. A comment that if humans can breed so many variations on the gray wolf in a few hundred years, just imagine how far nature can go based on random variation but a billion years for changes to accumulate. IIRC, the term “evolution” was used repeatedly. The only spot I recall where one could strike 15 seconds worth and claim to be striking “evolution” was where he remarked that “This is what Charles Darwin was talking about when he wrote On the Origin of Species.”Report

WTF? The whole second episode was about evolution. You mention that the second episode only mentioned it briefly for 15 seconds, which greatly confused me. Is there some distinction between “evolution by natural selection” and big-E evolution I’m missing. NDT even went out of his was to bash theories of “intelligent design” when discussing the evolution of the eye.Report

Your peer group may be different than mine, @tod-kelly , for you to to perceive at variance from my perception that evolution isn’t taught in schools, but that doesn’t explain your perception at variance from mine that the second episode of Cosmos avoided the topic in any kind of forthright fashion.

Cosmos in both its incarnations is about the wonder of science fact. It is about the beauty and joy of the real universe and the collective endeavor of discovering more about it. In my opinion, Tyson’s narrative struck exactly the right note. He began by using an easy-to-understand model of how generational changes occur, with the artificial selection of today’s myriad breed of dogs, all descended from low-adrenaline producing wolves.

Because that was artificial rather than natural selection, he then shifted to another easy-to-understand example, the selection of white fur for bears living in iced-over regions of the world. He explained that the process is one that occurs to populations over tens of thousands of years, not individuals over single generations. Along the way he gave a direct, clear, and not-dumbed-down-but-accessible understanding of how mutations occur.

There was even a visual, if somewhat glossed-over, explanation of the morbid mechanism by way this works, with an animation showing a prey animal leaving a trail of blood behind as it was drug off to be consumed by a successful predator.

Tyson did a good job of explaining the idea of common ancestors and the inter connectedness of the tree of life. And he finished in what looks like a deliberate choice by himself and the writers with some self-revelation, as Tyson stated that contemplating this interconnectedness is for him a deeply spiritual experience.

This, IMO, wonderfully accomplished the purpose of the show: to illustrate the wonder, joy, and power of the scientific endeavor, in this case, with respect to evolution and the diversity of life. I’m not sure what you found dissatisfactory about this, @tod-kelly , but I went away both pleased and understanding precisely why the science denial lobby is so very, very pissed off about the show.Report

I thought the OP was silly for at least two reason, one, there is no proof given that a PBS station couldn’t or wouldn’t have been able to have made the series themselves. There is no proof that the decision to make it commercially had any effect on which topics and how much coverage those topics were given. There is no proof that having the series on PBS would have stopped the local PBS station from cutting the same 15 seconds.Report

I would add, also, that even putting aside the fact that this series apparently does cover evolution in detail, the failure of one program on one network to cover evolution in detail hardly constitutes evidence that it can’t be left up to the free market. Unlike the government, which tells you what to like, the market produces something for everyone, and, by the same token, something for everyone to hate.Report

Religious Institutions. Religious institutions may resume services subject to the following conditions, which apply to churches, synagogues, temples, mosques, interfaith centers, and any other space, including rented space, where religious or faith gatherings are held: 1. Indoor religious gatherings are limited to no more than ten people. 2. Outdoor religious gatherings of up to 250 people are allowed. Outdoor services may be held on any outdoor space the religious institution owns, rents, or reserves for use. 3. All attendees at either indoor or outdoor services must maintain appropriate social distancing of six feet and wear face masks or facial coverings at all times. 4. There shall be no consumption of food or beverage of any kind before, during, or after religious services, including food or beverage that would typically be consumed as part of a religious service. 5. Collection plates or receptacles may not be passed to or between attendees. 6. There should be no hand shaking or other physical contact between congregants before, during, or after religious services. Attendees shall not congregate with other attendees on the property where religious services are being held before or after services. Family members or those who live in the same household or who attend a service together in the same vehicle may be closer than six feet apart but shall remain at least six feet apart from any other persons or family groups. 7. Singing is permitted, but not recommended. If singing takes place, only the choir or religious leaders may sing. Any person singing without a mask or facial covering must maintain a 12-foot distance from other persons, including religious leaders, other singers, or the congregation. 8. Outdoor or drive-in services may be conducted with attendees remaining in their vehicles. If utilizing parking lots for either holding for religious services or for parking for services held elsewhere on the premises, religious institutions shall ensure there is adequate parking available. 9. All high touch areas, (including benches, chairs, etc.) must be cleaned and decontaminated after every service. 10. Religious institutions are encouraged to follow the guidelines issued by Governor Hogan.

“There shall be no consumption of food or beverage of any kind before, during, or after religious services, including food or beverage that would typically be consumed as part of a religious service,” the order says in a section delineating norms and restrictions on religious services.

The consumption of the consecrated species at Mass, at least by the celebrant, is an integral part of the Eucharistic rite. Rules prohibiting even the celebrating priest from receiving the Eucharist would ban the licit celebration of Mass by any priest.

CNA asked the Howard County public affairs office to comment on how the rule aligns with First Amendment religious freedom and free exercise rights.

Howard County spokesman Scott Peterson told CNA in a statement that "Howard County has not fully implemented Phase 1 of Reopening. We continue to do an incremental rollout based on health and safety guidelines, analysis of data and metrics specific to Howard County and in consultation with our local Health Department."

"With this said," Peterson added, "we continue to get stakeholder feedback in order to fully reopen to Phase 1."

The executive order also limits attendance at indoor worship spaces to 10 people or fewer, limits outdoor services to 250 socially-distanced people wearing masks, forbids the passing of collection plates, and bans handshakes and physical contact between worshippers.

In contrast to the 10-person limit for churches, establishments listed in the order that do not host religious services are permitted to operate at 50% capacity.

In the early days of the Coronavirus epidemic, there were hopes that the disease could be treated with a compound called hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). HCQ is a long-established inexpensive medicine that is widely used to treat malaria. It also has uses for treating rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. There had been some indications that HCQ could treat SARS virus infections by attacking the spike proteins that coronaviruses use to latch onto cells and inject their genetic material. Initial small-scale studies of the drug on COVID-19 patients indicated some positive effect (in combination with the antibiotic azithromycin). President Trump, in March, promoted HCQ as a game-changer and is apparently taking it as a prophylaxis after potentially being exposed by White House staff.

Initial claims of the efficacy of this therapy were a perfect illustration of why we base decisions on scientific studies and not anecdotes. By late March, Twitter was filled with stories of "my cousin's mother's former roommate was on death's door and took this therapy and miraculously recovered". But such stories, even assuming they are true, mean nothing. With COVID-19, we know that seriously ill people reach an inflection point where they either recover or die. If they died while taking the HCQ regimen, we don't hear from them because...they died. And if they recover without taking it, we don't hear from them because...they didn't take it. Our simian brains have evolved to think that correlation is causation. But it isn't. If I sacrificed a goat in every COVID-19 patient's room, some of them would recover just by chance. That doesn't mean we should start a massive holocaust of caprines.

However, even putting aside anecdotes, there were good reasons to believe the HCQ regimen might work. And given the seriousness of this disease and the desperation of those trying to save lives, it's understandable that doctors began using it for critically ill patients and scientists began researching its efficacy.

Why Trump became fixated on it is equally understandable. Trump has been looking for a quick fix to this crisis since Day One. Denial failed. Closing off (some) travel to China failed. A vaccine is months if not years away. So HCQ offered him what he wanted -- a way to fix this problem without the hard work, tough choices and sacrifice of stay-at-home orders, masks, isolation and quarantine. So eager were they to adopt the quick fix, the Administration made plans to distribute millions of doses of this unproven drug in lieu of taking more concrete steps to address the crisis.[efn_note]Although the claim that Trump stands to profit off HCQ sales does not appear to hold much water.[/efn_note]

This is also why certain fringe corners of the internet became fixated on it. There has arisen a subset of the COVID Truthers that I'm calling HCQ Truthers: people who believe that HCQ isn't just something that may save some lives but is, in fact, a miracle cure that it's only being held back so that...well, take your pick. So that Democrats can wreck the economy. So that Bill Gates can inject us with tracking devices. So that we can clear off the Social Security rolls. And this isn't just a US phenomenon nor is it all about Trump. Overseas friends tell me that COVID trutherism in general and HCQ trutherism in particular have arisen all over the Western World.

It's no accident that the HCQ Truthers seem to share a great deal of headspace with the anti-Vaxxers. It fills the same needs

In both cases, the idea was started by flawed studies. The initial studies out of China and France that indicated HCQ worked were heavily criticized for methodological errors (although note that neither claimed it was a miracle cure). Since then, larger studies have shown no effect.

HCQ trutherism offers an explanation for tragedy beyond the random cruelty of nature. Just as anti-vaxxers don't want to believe that sometimes autism just happens, HCQ Truthers don't want to believe that sometimes nature just releases awful epidemics on us. It's more comforting, in some ways, to think that bad happenings are all part of a plan by shadowy forces.

There is, however, another crazy side that doesn't get as much attention because their crazy is a bit more subtle. These are the people who have decided that, since Trump is touting the HCQ treatment, it must not work. It can not work. It can not be allowed to work. There is an undisguised glee when studies show that HCQ does not work and a willingness to blame HCQ shortages on Trump and only Trump.[efn_note]Not to mention the odd fish tank cleaner poisoning that has nothing to do with him.[/efn_note]

In between the two camps are everyone else: scientists, doctors and ordinary folk who just want to know whether this thing works or not, politics and conspiracy theories be damned. Well, last week, we got a big indication that it does not. A massive study out of the Lancet concluded that the HCQ regimen has no measurable positive effect. In fact, death rates were higher for those who took the regimen, likely due to heart arrhythmias induced by the drug.

So is the debate over? Can we move on from HCQ? Not quite.

First of all, the study is a retrospective study, looking backward at nearly 100,000 cases over the last four months. That's a massive sample that allows one to correct for potential confounding factors. But it's not a double-blind trial, so there may be certain biases that can not be avoided. In response to the publication, a group doing a controlled study unblinded some of their data (that is, they let an independent group look up who was getting the actual HCQ and who was getting a placebo). It did not show enough of a safety concern to warrant ending the study.

It's also worth noting that because this is an unproven therapy, it is usually being used on only the sickest patients (the odd President of the United States aside). It's possible earlier use of the drug, when the body is not already at war with itself, could help.

With those caveats in mind, however, this study at least makes it clear that HCQ is not the miracle cure some fringe corners of the internet are pretending it is. And it should make doctors hesitant in giving to people who already have heart issues.

As you can imagine, this has only fed the twin camps of derangement. The truther arguments tend to fall into the usual holes that truther theories do:

"How can this be a four-month study when we only learned about COVID in January!" The HCQ protocol started being used almost immediately because of previous research on coronaviruses.

"How come all of the sudden this safe medicine that people use all the time is dangerous?!" The side effects of HCQ have been well known for years and have always required consideration and management. They may be showing up more strongly here because it is being given to patients whose bodies are already under extreme stress. Also, azithromycin may amplify some of those side effects.

"They just hate Trump." Not everything is about Donald Trump. If it turned out that kissing Donald Trump's giant orange backside cured COVID, scientists would be the first ones telling people to line up and use chapstick.

The other camp's response has ranged from undisguised glee -- that is, joy at the idea that we won't be saving lives cheaply -- to bizarre claims that Trump should be charged with crimes for touting this unproven therapy.

(A perfect illustration of the dementia: former FDA Head Scott Gottlieb -- who has been a Godsend for objective analysis during the pandemic -- tweeted out the results of the RECOVERY unblinding yesterday morning and noted that it showed no increased safety risk. He was immediately dogpiled by one side insisting he was trying to conceal the miracle cure of HCQ and the other insisting he is a Trumpist doing the Orange Man's dirty work.)

In the end, the lunatics do not matter. Whether HCQ works or not, whether it is used or not, will be mostly determined by doctors and will mostly be based on the evidence we have in front of us. If HCQ fails -- and it's not looking good -- my only response will be massive disappointment. Had HCQ worked, it would have been a gift from the heavens. It is a well-known, well-studied drug that can be manufactured cheaply in bulk. Had it worked, we could have saved thousands of lives, prevented hundreds of thousands of long-term injuries and saved trillions of dollars. That it doesn't appear to work -- certainly not miraculously -- is not entirely unexpected but is also a tragedy.

{C1} The Christian Science Monitor looks at 1918 and how sports handled that pandemic, and the role it played in giving rise to college football.

"That's really what started the big boom of college football in the 1920s," said Jeremy Swick, historian at the College Football Hall of Fame. "People were ready. They were back from war. They wanted to play football again. There weren't as many restrictions about going out. You could enroll back in school pretty easily. You see a great level of talent come back into the atmosphere. There's new money. It started to get to the roar of the Roaring '20s and that's when you see the stadiums arm race. Who can build the biggest and baddest stadium?"

{C2} During times of rapid change, social science is supposed to be able to help lead the way or at least decipher what is going on. Or maybe not...

But while Willer, Van Bavel, and their colleagues were putting together their paper, another team of researchers put together their own, entirely opposite, call to arms: a plea, in the face of an avalanche of behavioral science research on COVID-19, for psychology researchers to have some humility. This paper—currently published online in draft format and seeding avid debates on social media—argues that much of psychological research is nowhere near the point of being ready to help in a crisis. Instead, it sketches out an “evidence readiness” framework to help people determine when the field will be.

{C3} There is a related story about AI - which is predisposed towards tracking slow change over time - is having trouble keeping up.

{C4} The Covid-19 does not bode well for higher education is not news. They may have a lot of difficulty opening up (and maybe shouldn't). An added wrinkle is kids taking a gap year, which is potentially a problem because those most able to pay may be least likely to attend.

{C5} People who can see the faults with abstinence only education fail to see how that logic (We shouldn't give guidance to people doing things we would rather they not do in the first place). Emily Oster argues that the extreme message of public health advocates to Just Stay Home is counterproductive.

When people are advised that one very difficult behavior is safe, and (implicitly or not) that everything else is risky, they may crack under the pressure, or throw up their hands. That is, if people think all activities (other than staying home) are equally risky, they figure they might as well do those that are more fun. If taking a walk at a six-foot distance from a friend puts me at very high risk, why not just have that friend and a bunch of others over for a barbecue? It’s more fun. This is an exaggeration, of course, but different activities carry very different risks, and conscientious civic leaders should actively help people choose among them.

{C6} A look at what canceling the football season will do to the little guys - non-power schools. Ironically, they may sustain less damage due to fewer financial obligations relying on the money that won't be coming in. Be that as it may, Fordham has disestablished its baseball program.

{C7} Bans on evictions and rental spikes could have the main effect of simply pushing out small investors, rather than protecting renters. In a more good-faith economy this would be less of an issue because landlords would work with tenants. Which some are, though I don't have too much faith about it being widespread.

{C8} Three cheers for Nick Saban. Football coaches are cultural leaders of a sort. One is about to become a senator in Alabama, even. What they do matters.

The American college experience for better or for worse revolves around the residency factor. We have turned college into a relatively safe place for young adults to the test the limits of freedom without suffering too many consequences. Better to miss a day of classes because you drank too much than to miss a day of an apprenticeship or job and get fired. College was cut short this semester because of COVID and colleges are freaking out about whether they can open up dorms in the fall. The dorms are big money makers and it is hard to justify huge tuition bucks for zoom lectures even for elite universities. Maybe especially for them. California State University announced that Fall 2020 is going to be largely online. My undergrad alma mater sent out an e-mail blast announcing their plan to reopen in the fall with "mostly" in person classes. The President admitted that the plan was a work in progress but it strikes me as a combination of common sense and extreme wishful thinking. The plan may include:

1. Staggered drop-off days to limit density as we return.

This sounds reasonable but only in a temporary way because eventually everyone will be back on campus, living in dorm rooms together, needing to use communal bathrooms and showers.

2. Students would be tested for COVID-19 on campus at least twice in the first 14 days.

There is nothing wrong with this as long as the testing is available. Our capacity for testing so far in this country has not been great.

3. Anyone experiencing symptoms would be tested immediately. Students who test positive would be cared for in a separate dormitory area where food would be brought to the room and where the student could still access classes remotely.

Nothing wrong here. Outbreaks of certain diseases are not unknown in the college setting. During my senior year, there was an outbreak of a rather nasty strain of gastroenteritis. Other universities have experienced meningitis outbreaks.

4. All students would take their temperature and report symptoms daily.

This one is also reasonable but is going to involve spying on students and coming up with a punishment mechanism. How will they make sure students are not lying?

5. We would also require that socializing be kept to a minimum in the beginning, with proper PPE (masks) and social distancing. As time went on, we would seek to open up more, and students could socialize and eat together in small groups.

I have no idea how they tend for this to happen and it sets of all my lawyer bells for carefully crafted language that attempts to answer a concern or question but also admits "we got nothing." Maybe today's students are more somber and sincere but you are going to have around 500 eighteen year olds who are away from their parents for the first time and another 1500 nineteen to twenty-one year olds who had their semester rudely interrupted and might now be reunited with boyfriends and girlfriends. Are they going to assign eating times for the dining hall and put up solo eating cubicles that get wiped down and disinfected after each use? Assign times to use laundry facilities in each dorm? Cancel the clubs? Cancel performances by the theatre, dance, and music departments?

I am sympathetic to my alma I love it but and realize that a lot of colleges and universities would take a real hit financially without residency. This includes universities with reasonable to very large endowments. Only the ones with hedge fund size endowments would not suffer but the last part of the plain sounds not fully thought out yet even if my college's current President admitted: "Life on campus will not look the same as it did pre-pandemic" The only way i see number 5 working is if requiring is read as "requiring."

Seems that the theory that Covid-19 can be spread by asymptomatic people has very shaky evidence in support of it. Turns out the case this assumption was made from was based on a single woman who infected 4 others. Researchers talked to the 4 patients, and they all said the patient 0 did not appear ill, but they could not speak to patient 0 at the time.

So they finally got to talk to her, and she said she was feeling ill, but powered through with the aid of modern pharmaceuticals.

Ten Second News

Today we couldn’t be happier to announce that Vox Media and New York Media are merging to create the leading independent modern media company. Our combined business will be called Vox Media and will serve hundreds of millions of audience members wherever they prefer to enjoy our work.

In a nation in turmoil, it's nice to have even a small bit of good news:

Representative Steve King of Iowa, the nine-term Republican with a history of racist comments who only recently became a party pariah, lost his bid for renomination early Wednesday, one of the biggest defeats of the 2020 primary season in any state.

In a five-way primary, Mr. King was defeated by Randy Feenstra, a state senator, who had the backing of mainstream state and national Republicans who found Mr. King an embarrassment and, crucially, a threat to a safe Republican seat if he were on the ballot in November.

The defeat was most likely the final political blow to one of the nation’s most divisive elected officials, whose insults of undocumented immigrants foretold the messaging of President Trump, and whose flirtations with extremism led him far from rural Iowa, to meetings with anti-Muslim crusaders in Europe and an endorsement of a Toronto mayoral candidate with neo-Nazi ties.

King, you may remember, was stripped of his committee assignments last year when he defended white supremacism. Two years ago, he almost lost his Congressional seat in the general. That is, a seat that Republicans have held since 1986, usually win by double digits and a district Trump carried by a whopping 27 points almost came within a point or two of voting in a Democrat. That's how repulsive King had gotten.

Good riddance to bad rubbish. Enjoy retirement, Congressman. Oops. Sorry. In January, it will be former Congressman.

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From the Daily Mail: Deadliest city in America plans to disband its entire police force and fire 270 cops to deal with budget crunch

The deadliest city in America is disbanding its entire police force and firing 270 cops in an effort to deal with a massive budget crunch.

...

The police union says the force, which will not be unionized, is simply a union-busting move that is meant to get out of contracts with current employees. Any city officers that are hired to the county force will lose the benefits they had on the unionized force.

Oak Park police say they are investigating “suspicious circumstances” after two attorneys — including one who served as a hearing officer in several high-profile Chicago police misconduct cases — were found dead in their home in the western suburb Monday night.

Officers were called about 7:30 p.m. for a well-being check inside a home in the 500 block of Fair Oaks Avenue, near Chicago Avenue, and found the couple dead inside, Oak Park spokesman David Powers said in an emailed statement. Authorities later identified them as Thomas E. Johnson, 69, and Leslie Ann Jones, 67, husband and wife attorneys who worked in Chicago.

The preliminary report from an independent autopsy ordered by George Floyd's family says the 46 year old man's death was "caused by asphyxia due to neck and back compression that led to a lack of blood flow to the brain".

The independent examiners found that weight on the back, handcuffs and positioning were contributory factors because they impaired the ability of Floyd's diaphragm to function, according to the report.

Dr. Michael Baden and the University of Michigan Medical School's director of autopsy and forensic services, Dr. Allecia Wilson, handled the examination, according to family attorney Ben Crump.

Baden, who was New York's medical examiner in 1978 and 1979, had previously performed independent autopsies on Eric Garner, who was killed by a police officer in Staten Island, New York, in 2014 and Michael Brown, who was shot by officers in Ferguson, Missouri, that same year.

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Oddly, the video was dropped by an attorney friend the men, because he thought it would exonerate them. He assumed when people saw Aubrey turn and try to defend himself, everyone would see what they did: a dangerous animal needing to be put down.